Sunday, November 6, 2011

Democracy's Growth in Africa: Slow, Violent, and Worth Celebrating

Hopes are running high for Liberia's second presidential elections since
the end of its brutal civil war. The first round of polling appears to
be credible. And with former warlord and current senator Prince
Johnson's endorsement, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first
female head of state, is likely to win the run-off in November in what
has been so far a largely fair and peaceful election. However, recent
presidential elections in Ivory Coast and Nigeria risk overshadowing
Liberia's consolidating democracy, and they are much larger countries.
Both polls were historic: Ivory Coast's was the first since the end of
civil war, and Nigeria's “better” election followed its 2007
“election-like event.” Nevertheless, they illustrate, alongside the
polls in Kenya in 2007 and Zimbabwe in 2008, the potential for violent
elections in profoundly divided countries. Twenty-seven African
countries will hold local and national elections by the end of 2011, and
at least seventeen more are expected next year. If elections are so
often violent and polarizing, even when they are deemed free and fair,
should the United States be promoting them? The answer is yes. Because
Africans want them.